[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Ron --


> Ham,
> Also I wanted to add that while Pirsig does not offer us any faith
> he does offer us the belief in our own experience and the power
> to derive value for the individual.
>
> He gives the kick in the pants to go figure it out on your own
> because no one can tell you what it is all about. Only the individual
> can decide what their own experience means.
>
> Trying to tell people their purpose and meaning always seems to go awry.

If that is what Pirsig is saying, you'll have no dispute with me.  It is a 
fundamental tenet of Essentialism that each individual is not only free to 
discover the meaning of his life-experience but that this is the very 
purpose of the value agent.

> I derived that statement in opposition to yours which, I quote:

"The mistake of Pirsig and his interpretors is to posit Value (Quality) as 
primary to existence, thereby rejecting the individual subject without whose 
realization there would be no value."

> I maintain that we Pirsigians can validate our statement via experience.
> If we deprive our biological values the self dissolves into
> unconsciousness and perhaps annihilation, deprived of the value of oxygen.

Biology isn't a "value".  It's a category of natural process that we've 
intellectualized as the science of life forms.  Oxygen, like carbon, 
nitrogen and hydrogen, are elements needed to support organic life.  But 
physical elements do not constitute or create  conscious awareness. 
Consciousness (i.e., "selfness") is not a physical entity.  This is the crux 
of our discrepancy.

> This is simply one of many examples which rest upon the
> concept that there is a value requirement for the self to exist
> and function normally.
> I think what you might be expressing is the neo-platonic ideal
> of the soul and how it relates and returns to the Paremidean "One".

"Soul" is a classical term that has been defined in many ways -- for 
example, as the "spiritual part of man that is redeemed by his Creator" or, 
as Aristotle posited it, "the vital principle or nature of an organic body". 
Because of this ambiguity, I prefer the term "psyche" to designate the 
knowing, value-sensible self.

> Now if you argue that "value" and oxygen are simply metaphors
> for the process of being aware then that self-same logic may
> apply to your own theories making this merely an exercise in the
> art of pursuasion of belief.
> But the pragmatic truth remains in experience, deprivation of
> certain values will cause oneself to dissolve.

Experiential awareness is a contingency of being, but the psychic locus of 
awareness is not a being, and "oxygen" has nothing to do with it.  The power 
or capacity "to know" does not evolve from nature or the material world.  It 
is derived from the primary dichotomy "Sensibility/Otherness" which 
actualizes proprietary "being-aware".  It is this subjective entity whose 
experience constructs the relational world of "appearances" -- objects and 
events evolving in space/time.

What you've interpreted from "Pirsig says" is commendible.  But your 
subsequent  comments have you thinking like an objectivist, which is 
contrary to my philosophy.
It also lacks the clarity of your previous discussions on the use of logic.

Nice to hear from you again, Ron.

Best regards,
Ham